


Rocky Horror Costume Shop

by augopher



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Allison, Alive Laura Hale, Alive Vernon Boyd & Erica Reyes, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Alternate Universe- Costume Shop, Derek Needs To Use His Words, F/M, Los Angeles, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Production of Rocky Horror Picture Show, Slow Build, Tattooed Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2782205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augopher/pseuds/augopher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek had finally been moved up from where he languished as Peter's firsthand to assistant costume designer just in time for the big budget stage production of Rocky Horror Picture Show. He was good at what he did and this could be just what he needed for his career to take a step in the right direction.</p><p>He knows what to expect on big shows, but he doesn't know what to expect when he falls head over heels for the show's Rocky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not At All What Derek Expected

Derek walked in that morning, the first one in, per the norm, not that he minded. He liked it better this way, being alone in the shop. It gave him time to tidy things up, get task lists ready for the crew. Muslin was laid out for the drapers and tailors to start working on the builds for the few actors who'd already been measured. The Firsthand, Kira and he had the rest of the cast in for measurements today. The three stitchers underneath Kira, Liam, Mason, and Malia had the joy of pulling any usable pieces from wardrobe storage today. They had two months until opening night.

If Derek could bottle the smell of the costume shop, he would. There was something so wonderful about the way the scent of spray starch blended with the slight tang of minerals left behind by iron steam, the way laundry detergent and fabric softener mixed with the wholly unique smell of sewing machine oil. Different varieties of coffee rose from the snack table and mingled with everything else. Hell even the stale scent of old hairspray was charming. In short, 'Costume Shop' was one of his favorite smells in the world. The best part about it was, every shop smelled different but also the same.

He'd been his Uncle Peter's Firsthand for the past three years and had spent the four years before that as a stitcher. Thankless jobs, filled with long hours hunched over cutting tables and sewing machines, hundreds of thousand curses yelled at sergers that didn't cooperate when they needed a thread change. Why had he stayed at a job like that for so long? To make it in this industry, dues needed to be paid, and for budding costume designers, that meant starting at the bottom as a stitcher, slogging away for small companies that paid little, all under the guise of gaining experience. After all, being solely responsible for taking the costume from pattern to finished product looked great in a portfolio. At least that's what Derek told himself.

The truth was, he had long since grown bored with rising no higher than Firsthand. He'd built some of his own designs from scratch on his own time, whatever little amount of it he had, and taken those to interview for potential designer positions, but never managed to secure so much as an assistant designer job. He'd been doing this since he graduated from college, seven years now, and until Peter called him desperate for a new assistant because his go-to, Jennifer, had finally grown fed-up with his raving ego-mania, he'd really thought about giving up his dream as depressing as that sounded.

With a renewed zeal, he'd thrown himself into his duties. It felt great to know he was finally getting somewhere in his career. Assistant Costume Designer, especially on a show this large, could be his big break. The new Druid Playhouse down in Los Angeles had been pulling in crowds like crazy since it opened a year and a half ago, and it had all the in-demand directors salivating at the chance to work there. Frankly, Derek hadn't believe him when Peter called at one in the morning telling him he got hired as the designer on Druid's summer production of Rocky Horror Picture Show. The best part about the show large budget? In ten weeks, he'd make half of his yearly haul.

"Good morning, Derek." Kira greeted him with a large cup of coffee. "I got one for you too. Large Americano right?"

He nodded. "Thanks."

She hung up her backpack and put on her game face. "What's on the agenda today, Boss?"

Nose buried in casting sheets, he didn't bother looking up. "Don't call me, Boss, please. That's Peter." Okay, so his uncle's name was not supposed to come out as a groan, but the man was hell to work for, especially when it came to his capriciousness. Derek will never forgive him for coming to him in the middle of a build for the Queen of Hearts, saying 'I know I said full Elizabethan, but I've changed my mind. Can we put her in 18th century French court dress? She'd rock the hell out of a pannier. The wider the better.'

"Okay. What do we have today? Oh by the way, I caught Mason and Liam on the subway platform. I put them to work straight away pulling any corset that might work for Frank N. Furter. Anyone else they should be looking for?"

He took out the sheets for actors they'd already seen. "Columbia. There have to be corsets that will work for her. Have them pull all the tuxedo jackets with full tails too. Need a couple of those for Riff Raff. Tell them to hold off on looking for Charles' suit. I got a cursory glance at the actor they cast for him the other day. Pretty big guy. Tall. Save them the trouble." He handed her a stack of sheets. "So this is for the morning appointments. I'm actually going to go across the street and grab a bagel. You want one?"

"No thanks."

 

                                                                                              *   *   *   *   *

 

When Derek returned, lox and bagel half eaten in hand, Kira was already near finishing the measurements for their first appointment.

"Hey you want to take down these for me?"

He looked at the measurement sheet. "So you're our Magenta?"

The blonde woman nodded. "Erica."

"Nice to meet you, Erica. Any allergies to fabric detergents, softeners, fabrics?"

"Nope. Just cats."

Kira held the tape flat against the inside of Erica's leg. "Inseam to ankle 31". Inseam to floor 33". That was the last one."

Derek jotted down the last two numbers. "Got any tattoos or other body modifications?"

"No."

"Willing to color your hair?"

"Yes, so long as it's not permanent color."

"Okay great. Thanks for being on time, Erica."

Once Erica left the shop, Kira switched on some music. "You look like you need more of a pick me up besides just coffee. So get up off your butt and dance to Stevie Wonder with me."

He groaned but stood and took her proffered hand. Dancing to "Superstition" at ten in the morning wasn't usually on his morning agenda, but he had to admit that it got his blood moving, blood which all but stopped the moment their next appointment walked in...fifteen minutes late.

Derek prayed the guy didn't see him lick his lips at the sight of him. Dressed in skinny jeans and a Batman t-shirt, with disheveled hair the perfect mix of bed head and a lack of fucks given, he took a long drink from his Red Bull. Those big, brown doe eyes bored a hole into Derek's soul.

"Sorry I'm late. I'm also in school, and had a final at eight this morning. Trust me, not enough caffeine in the world for that test. Tried the actor thing for a couple years with no luck, so I decided to give that college thing a try. Forgot how badly early rising sucked ass."

"And you're our Frank N. Furter?" Derek asked before mentally face palming.

"Uh Derek, we measured Isaac yesterday. These two look nothing alike." Kira laughed. "You need more coffee."

The guy, not Frank, sat down his energy drink. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

Derek only just stopped short of saying how good the guy would probably look in a pair of fishnets. "You have the general build they usually cast as Frank."

"Uh huh." It's almost like he doesn't believe Derek's lie. "Too bad for you and your angry eyebrows."

Kira put Derek out of his misery. "Zibi...Zbi..." She struggled over his name.

"Damn it. That guy put my full name on there? I told him to use Stiles."

"Stiles. That is so much easier." She crossed out the director's own brand of chicken scratch and rewrote 'Stiles' on his sheets. "Stiles here is our Rocky."

Derek absolutely did not choke on his last bite of bagel. He simply did not.

That also happened to be the precise moment Peter walked through the door. "That's my rocky? Too skinny!" He gestured to Stiles with an exaggerated flourish and eye roll. "Well obviously, I can't work with THAT!"

With the tape measure firmly in hand, Derek groaned, encircling Stiles' chest, trying not to imagine the guy in front of him in only a pair of tiny shorts. It wasn't working. "Good morning to you too, Peter. That's 36 for chest. Deep breath, please and hold it." He waited for Stiles' lungs to fill with air. "And 40 expanded." Derek almost made a smart ass remark about how he can feel a toned torso beneath the T-shirt, but luckily stopped himself. _Don't be a creeper, Derek._ He resumed taking the man's measurements in a mechanical fashion, anything to keep his mind off Stiles.

"So then Scott said how this director is supposed to be some big shot, and yeah we'd been kickin' it in LA for four years now, getting nowhere. Like no parts, nothing. I mean Scott thinks it's because of his uneven jaw line. I keep telling him that it gives him character, but as usual I'm pretty sure he doesn't listen to me. Goes on and on how there are no parts for Hispanic actors, and I'm like of course there aren't. Not with that attitude! So anyway, he goes on and on about this girl, Allison he's been seeing like forever, and how she was cast as Janet, and how it would be awesome if he was Brad. But yeah, even he told me to try out for Dr. Frank. One, I could not walk in those shoes, and two...no there is no two."

Derek went back to toning the guy out. What was it with actors? Were they all so damn histrionic that they could not function without constantly hearing the sound of their own voices?

He asked the standard allergies question which earned the same response as Erica before him. When he asked about body modifications, he was not expecting a yes.

"I have a tattoo on my chest. Is that bad? I've covered it before no problem."

Derek wished he didn't have to ask the next question, but the guy would be walking around on stage in almost nothing. Visible evidence was needed. "Um, can you take off your shirt?"

"Sure. I mean I told the director that when I auditioned, and it's on my resume. It's not like I hid it."

"It's fine. I just need to know what type of cover we'll need. Black and white requires a different blend than color, and why am I telling you this?" He was definitely not prepared for the quickness with which Stiles shucked his shirt, and he absolutely was not prepared for-

"Derek!" Peter whined. "He has chest hair! Why would the director do this to me? Doesn't he like me? It has to go! Get him some wax!" Peter yelled from across the room. "My Rocky is as smooth as silk. Why couldn't they have cast a blonde? Why do I stick with theatre? I could be designing for superstars." He threw up his hands in disgust, leaving the room in a dramatic huff.

"Don't mind him. He's nursing a major narcisicm complex, but yeah you'll need to at least shave. Sorry." Derek swallowed hard at the sight of the trail of dark hair leading from the man's navel down below his waistband. "You can put your shirt back on. We'll able to cover it just fine. Don't worry about it."

Stiles thanked them and was soon out the door. Derek groaned and let his head hit the table with a thud. Stiles was going to cause him so much trouble. If only the guy would stop talking so much.

As for the tattoo, he'd been expecting some lame ass bit of douchery. He'd seen plenty from the actors he'd worked with before. Stuff like pretentious quotes about life, never giving up and countless tribal tattoos on guys whiter than snow-- if he had to see one more barbed wire tattoo he was going to puke. But Stiles? No, the guy had a gorgeous tattoo depicting a matryoshka of a woman wonderfully detailed in vibrant color with arms wrapped around a small boy with the words 'Ku pamięci, Matka' underneath it.

It made Derek want to take Stiles apart and see what nested inside him.


	2. No Gold Lamé

Derek tried to tune out the noise in the shop. The daily hustle and bustle of industry grated on his nerves. He'd forgotten his headphones at home, so all morning he'd been forced to listen to Malia's frustration of flat patterning a velvet smoking jacket for Charles Gray when it would be so much easier to pull one from wardrobe.

Peter, in one of his trademark fits of intense narcissism and delusions of grandeur, had tossed all their suggestions from available costumes insisting that everyone needed things made from scratch. ' _Derek, they must fit immaculately! What kind of show do you think I'm running here? Community theatre? Please, don't insult my talent.'_ Derek did not point out that the way his uncle said 'talent' made him sound like Calculon on  Futurama. Okay, maybe he mumbled it under his breath.

Derek had been tasked with three builds for the show. First, there was Janet's first act dress, which in Derek's mind was the last thing he wanted to work on. Another 1950's silhouette with a Peter Pan collar? Jesus Peter, push the envelope a little. At least the leather corset for Dr. Frank N. Furter held more of his interest, but he'd worked on the pattern to that yesterday until like ten at night. His brain needed a break, which is why he sat at his table (Yes, as assistant designer, he got his own table that no one else was supposed to use) staring at a mess of muslin and butcher paper, Rocky's tiny shorts the furthest thing from his mind.

He had his supplies arranged just the way he liked them, thank you very much, and did not want meddling hands putting them out of order or stealing his expensive shears. It wouldn't be the first time. Plus, his chair was adjusted perfectly. Scowling at any student interns on the show that approached his table seemed to help keep them away. Fuck if he cared that they were afraid of him.

His fingers worked the muslin on the dressform next to him. He always preferred flat patterning to draping, partly because he enjoyed building men's costumes more than women's. It probably had something to do with the fact he better understood how they were supposed to fit. Though more likely, suits and tailoring were such underappreciated art forms. Still, he'd always found box pleats easier to drape first than work in all that stupid math.

"Avaunt catastrophe!" Peter wailed on his way into the shop. "Derek! This is a disaster!"

Derek looked at his work. "I didn't think my pleats looked that bad."

"Not you! Your pleats are fine." He said with a flourish. "Some clumsy actor couldn't pry his eyes off a pretty girl for even two seconds and crashed right into me! Spilled his ridiculous augmented coffee drink all over me!"

Derek turned his gaze away from his uncle and continued working. "You'll wash. I have first hand knowledge that there are three showers in your place."

Peter pulled his scarf away from his body. "Look at this! It's ruined! Absolutely in shambles." He held a palm to his forehead. "However will I get through my day knowing that I look like a walking emesis bag?"

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's just a scarf. Get a new one."

He took off the offending garment and thrust it into Derek's face. "This is vicuna, an $800 handmade beauty! I can't just get a new one! " He threw up his hands and wandered off in a huff.

Not even a minute later, Derek heard someone burst into tears after Peter's _'What in the hell do you call this? I asked for a smoking jacket not a Halloween costume! He's a criminologist not a pimp!'_  echoed throughout the shop. He looked up just in time to see Malia rushing out of the shop. Standing to stretch his legs, he thought it best to sneak out of the shop for lunch before Peter went on a rampage. Quietly, Derek wheeled his dressform into the corner and behind a mostly full rack of costumes bound for a return trip to wardrobe storage. There was no way he was letting his uncle near those stupid box pleats.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Derek swirled noodles of his pad thai takeout around his fork, and yes he realized chopsticks were more authentic. He just didn't care. The summer sun filtered in through the trees in the courtyard behind the Druid Theatre, providing some shade, but the warmth remained. It felt nice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a few of the cast running through their lines. He recognized Erica, Isaac, and Scott from measuring. Those were the only three whose faces he could see, everyone else had their backs to him. Since there was nothing else to watch while he ate, he shifted so he could see them all clearly.

Isaac stood up. "Throw open the switches on the sonic oscillator! And step up the reactor power input three more points." He said with a little shimmy of his shoulders.

And okay, Derek was starting to be able to picture the guy as Frank. He continued to watch the group rehearse what he assumed was Rocky's birth scene. The guy playing Rocky, Smiles...no Stiles--What? Derek hadn't really been focusing on anything he said to be honest, just what he looked like, and imagining the guy hot and sweaty beneath him. So yeah, Stiles hung from a tree branch, presumably using it as the chandelier indicated in the script. Clearly, Stiles had been spending time in the gym in order to fill out. His arms had become much more defined since he'd been measured, and with the way his shirt rode up as he hung, Derek could see a more pronounced set of abs. He averted his eyes to try and regain his composure, but all his efforts turned out to be futile when Stiles started singing.

" _The Sword of Damocles is_  
_Hanging over my head_  
_And I've got the feeling_  
_Someone's going to be_  
_Cutting the thread._

_Oh, woe is me._  
_My life is a misery._

_Oh, can't you see_  
_That I'm at the start_  
_Of a pretty big downer..."_

Derek watched, hell he couldn't take his off him as Isaac chased Stiles around while he sang. His frenetic energy and flailing limbs were perfect for newborn Rocky. Eventually, the song ended and Stiles sat on the back of the park bench, dangling his legs over Isaac's shoulders.

"Well. That's no way to behave on your first day out. But as you're such an exceptional beauty I'm prepared to forgive." Isaac patted his knee.

Thoughts of those legs dangling over his shoulders while he sucked him off, clouded Derek's mind. Not only was Stiles just heaven to look at, he had the voice of an angel. Yeah, a brown eyed, deep-voiced angel. When they switched to another scene and the woman playing Janet, Allison, Derek thought her name was, started singing "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me," while practically groping Stiles, Derek promptly choked on his lunch.

Break time was over.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

After lunch, Derek had a hard time focusing. He couldn't get the impromptu lunchtime out of his head, and that voice. Fuck, that voice. The way it washed over him felt like dark honey, and Derek...well he might as well write off the rest of the day.

There was no way he could focus on Janet's mundane dress after all that. The illustration plate in front of him, drawn and painted with Peter's usual level of over the top flourishes and perfect calligraphy handwriting, didn't give him all that much to go on. How much work could a pair of teeny, skin tight, gold shorts take?

Well, according to Peter's notes, they had to transcend the stereotype for Rocky Horror's usual costume. The words 'NO GOLD LAMÉ' had been underlined and bolded, written in large, red letters. No way to miss those. Unfortunately, his uncle made no further suggestions for the fabric. Obviously, it had to have a good amount of stretch. Lacking direction, Derek sought out Peter, finding him staring at a dressform as though he had been waiting for it to speak to him, give him inspiration.

"So um, Peter?"

The man cut Derek off without so much as a glance in his direction. "Whatever it is Derek, you can handle it."

"It's a fabric choice question. You didn-"

"Take the business card and go buy it yourself. I trust your judgement."

Derek stared at him in shock. "What?"

"You can completely own the final design and build for Rocky. It's just shorts and shoes. Even if you have a moment of madness, temporary insanity, there is no way you will screw it up. Now," he dismissed Derek with a wave of his hand, which held Peter's business card, "get out of here. You're putting a damper on my creative juices."

Feeling inspired, Derek collected the card, and left for the fabric store. Once there, he wandered the shelves looking for the perfect fabric, and he had to admit, he was not feeling inspired by anything. The desperation must have been written all over his face, because after about fifteen minutes of aimless wandering, the clerk approached him.

"Something I can help you find?"

"Yes, well no, well I don't know. See, I'm the assistant designer for Druid's production of _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ , and well the designer gave me free reign and total control over Rocky's wardrobe, but I don't want to be the same gold shorts that he wears in every production. Just want something a little different."

"I can see that. Well take a look at some of our performance Lycra. It's athletic grade, so it's thicker, will give more support for your actor, because I'm assuming the shorts will be too tight to wear anything underneath. The added thickness would allow for any embellishments. Plus it's not shiny."

Derek thanked him and walked to the suggested fabric. He found a nice golden yellow and got a wicked idea. What about...airbrushing it? He could give it depth and pattern, make it look opulent and different. He could paint the shoes too. If this was going to be his one creative decision on this show, he was going for it.

After all...Rocky should look perfect...just like he thought Stiles did.

 

 


	3. "Go Left!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long hiatus on this. I had the worst case of writer's block on this fic, and then one BigBang fic with a runaway word count happened. But I think I am back in the swing of things on this.

Allison grabbed hold of Scott's arm and screamed. Scott petted her hair, an attempt to calm her. "It's all right, Janet."

She fisted her hands in his jacket and willed herself to shed a few tears as she feigned a shiver. "Oh Brad, let's go back. I'm cold, and I'm frightened."

"Just a moment, Janet," Scott pushed away from her and moved to his mark downstage left, "they may have a telephone."

"Cut! Cut! Cut!" Finstock, being the hot-headed director that he was, flung his script across the auditorium. "How many times do we have to go over this damn scene? When I said go left the last time, I meant it, Brad."

"I'm Scott."

Finstock rubbed his temples. "For the sake of this exercise, I'm calling you Brad."

"But-"

"And _you_ ," he stabbed an index finger in Scott's direction, "can call me Cupcake. In fact, you _all_ can call me Cupcake. Got it?"

From his seat in the front row, where he was taking notes on the actors' movements for Peter, Derek shook his head. The guy was impossible, Finstock was, not Peter. Well Peter was a special breed of impossible. _This_ , the taking notes was not technically Derek's job. He had no idea how his uncle wanted them to look, but since the man had deemed himself 'too important' to attend a plebeian rehearsal, it fell to Derek. 

He looked down at his notebook and the adjustments to fit that would surely be needed. For one? Finstock had Isaac doing a lot more dancing than Peter had originally thought. There was no way the garter belt Kira had made would survive all the extra hip thrusts and undulations. Seriously, it was like watching the dirtiest dancing possible. Derek would be turned on if his head wasn't filled with thoughts of Stiles dancing nearly naked. Erm wait, Rocky dancing. 

_Jesus, Derek. Stay professional and get your damn head out of the gutter._

"Damn it, Brad! I said left!" Finstock rolled his script back up and used it as a megaphone. "For crying out loud! How fucking hard is it to go left?" He rubbed his temples. "I am too damn old for this shit. By the way....too old is forty-five! You have me contemplating retirement at forty-five! Let's try this again. Say your line and for the love of God go left!" 

"I stand corrected Erica. The man's face actually can get redder."

"You owe me twenty bucks. Pay up." Erica punched Stiles in the shoulder, the bare shoulder, a fact of which Derek could not ignore no matter how hard he tried.  
He watched Stiles pat his equally bare chest and then hips as though feeling his pockets for his wallet. "Oh sorry, I must have left my wallet in my other pair of running shorts. You know, the ones with pockets."

She rolled her eyes at him.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice, Miss Reyes. Where the hell would I keep a wallet in these shorts? There's barely enough room for underwear and my dick."

Derek almost choked on the cap to his pen, the one he hadn't even realized he'd been chewing.

"What are you doing? Don't you know your right from your left? You're like eighteen. How did you graduate high school? I shudder to think what they're not teaching in school these days. Shudder, violently at that!"

"I'm twenty-three."

"What's the difference?"

"That would be five years, Cupcake." Stiles winked.

Honest to God- he winked, and Derek found it very difficult not to burst into raucous laughter.

"Cram it, Bilinski!"

Scott turned to Stiles. "He knows your name? How does he know your name and not mine?"

"Kinda hard not to remember the name of the guy sitting here in his underwear, Scotty Boy. Look, he knows Isaac's name, because he rehearses in lingerie. People tend to remember these things."

Finstock hefted himself onto the stage and rested a hand on Scott's shoulder. "Maybe I've been too hard on you, Skyler-"

"It's Scott."

"Fine, Scott. Take some deep breaths and," Finstock soothingly patted Scott on the arm before screaming in his face, "try it again!"

When Scott once again went stage left, Derek pulled his phone ready to call 9-1-1, because he was fairly certain Finstock was going to have a stroke... or kill someone. Probably both.

"Stop. stop stop. Scooter, you're a nice kid. A bit slow on the uptake though. Go over there." Finstock pointed stage right.

"Uh, Cupcake, that is left."

"What the hell are you talking about Bilinski?" He stood at the front of the stage facing them and held up his left hand. "See this. This is my left hand. Go that way!"

"But that's right." Scott said.

"For fuck's sake, Skipper." Finstock pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please stop reminding me why I drink....every night. Go left."

Finally Lydia cut in from her place on the spiral staircase. "Do you mean stage left or house left?"

"What? There's a difference?"

"Yes."

"That way." He pointed stage right. "Go that way. From now on, just assume left is over here and right is over here. Got it?"

"Way to redefine theatre, Cupcake, truly, you are a visionary." Stiles laughed.

"Bilinski, why are you even here today? See this call sheet? You know whose name is not on it? Yours. Go home."

Stiles shrugged. "Can't, Scotty boy is my ride. Looks like you're stuck with me." He bounded off stage and plopped down in the front row, several chairs away from Derek, and there he sat for a good ten minutes while rehearsal finally moved forward.

Derek chanced a glance over to see him struggling to get comfortable. Stiles fidgeted in his chair, first pulling his legs onto the chair and tucking them underneath him. That lasted for all of thirty seconds. Then, one leg still under him, Stiles kicked his other leg out and drew his knee to his chest so he could rest his head upon it. Derek shook his head with a silent chuckle. It was like watching a five year old being told to sit still and being incapable of doing so.

Stiles pulled his other knee to his chest, tipped his head over the back of the chair and sighed at the ceiling. That position was clearly not comfortable enough so he crossed his legs and sat tailor style, his elbows resting on his knees so that he could sit with his chin on his hands. The guy was able to hold this position for a little longer. Two minutes. Derek activated the stop watch on his phone; he timed him. Eventually, that position proved problematic. Stiles turned in the seat, and with his legs draped over the back of the chair, lay down so that his head hung down over the seat so he could watch rehearsal upside down. It would have been hilarious if his mouth didn't hang open too. All Derek could think about now was other ways to put that position to good use.

Once again, he choked on his pen cap.

"Hey Versace Lite, you need a Ricola or something?" Finstock barked at him. Derek shook his head. "Then shut up. You're interrupting my rehearsal. If you insist on coughing, take Bilinski and get a coffee."

Derek looked down at his notes. There had to be enough information to make adjustments.

"I can't go get a coffee, Cupcake. I don't have a shirt. You got any other nicknames? Cupcake feels a bit pretentious."

"Actors," Finstock grumbled under his breath. "You can call me Coach, but don't get too happy about it. I own a whistle, and I'm not afraid to use it."

Derek grabbed his messenger bag, stowed his notebook, and sneaked out of the auditorium.

Less than fifty feet outside the theatre, he heard someone running after him.

"Hey wait! Derek, right?"

He turned around to see Stiles jogging towards him, and dear God, his skin looked so much better in sunlight, like fine marble. Derek groaned inwardly.

"Sorry. You just- well here." Stiles thrust Derek's travel mug in his direction. "I wager tomorrow would probably be pretty rough without that thing."

"Er... um, thanks." He tucked the cup into his bag. "You should go back inside before you burn. I'd hate to think how badly Finstock would handle that tomorrow."

Stiles spread his arms, holding them out to his sides. "What? Don't like what you see?"

Derek rolled his eyes, almost purely on instinct. It was his go-to defense mechanism. Deflection was an art-form, and he was Rembrandt. Before he could say anything to further embarrass himself, he turned about face and tucked his metaphorical tail.

He didn't get paid enough for this.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on tumblr: I'm captaintinymite.tumblr.com
> 
> Ku pamięci, Matka is Polish and roughly translates into "In loving memory, Mother." I did the best I could with that, had trouble with 'loving'. If you speak Polish and I mangled that, please please correct me.


End file.
